The present disclosure relates to a wind power plant, having a planetary transmission, which is arranged for the purpose of converting a slow rotary motion of a rotor into a rapid rotary motion for operating an integrated medium-speed electric generator, comprising a transmission input shaft, which is connected indirectly to the rotor, and a transmission output shaft, which is connected to the generator indirectly via a generator shaft, wherein a coupling means is arranged between the generator and the planetary transmission.
The area of application of the disclosure extends to planetary transmissions of the kind encountered in the drive train of a wind power plant. Among the important features of such planetary transmissions are the dimensions and the weight. At the same time, important factors in the configuration of the transmission components are, not only the choice of materials and structural aspects, but also the prevailing forces and torques acting on the planetary transmission. Planetary transmissions of this kind are subject to extraordinary stresses due to the location at which they are installed and to the nonuniform changes in the load population.
DE 10 2006 051 546 A1 includes a wind energy plant having a twin-feed asynchronous generator, wherein a coupling is provided between the asynchronous generator and a transmission. This coupling serves to separate the generator mechanically from the drive train, ensuring that the transmission and the asynchronous generator are decoupled from one another during a phase shifter mode. The effective power required to maintain the rotational speed corresponds simply to the losses in the generator and the converter.
The generally known prior art discloses that, in the modularized version of the drive train, the transmission, which is generally a multi-stage planetary transmission with spur wheel stages, and the generator are mounted separately from one another and each one has a dedicated housing. The output shaft of the transmission and the output shaft of the high-speed generator are connected by an intermediate shaft. Medium-speed drive trains with a small number of spur wheel stages are already known from the prior art. If only planetary stages are used, the sun wheel shaft of the planetary stage on the generator side can be used as a shaft for connection to the generator.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,075,442 B2 discloses a planetary transmission for converting a slow rotary motion of a rotor into a rapid rotary motion for operating an integrated medium-speed electric generator. The transmission and the generator are arranged coaxially and have joint support for the transmission output shaft and the generator input shaft. A coupling in radial alignment with the bearing is arranged between the generator and the transmission. Moreover, the forces produced by the rotor and the generator and acting on the abovementioned bearing are less than the static and dynamic torques due to the gearing. It would be more advantageous to avoid a joint bearing for the coaxial output shaft and the generator shaft. Moreover, it is known from the generally known prior art that the primary aim in the case of medium-speed transmissions with a directly flanged-on generator is to reduce the overall length to a minimum. The housing of the transmission can simultaneously form the housing of the generator, and the transmission and the generator are therefore flanged to one another. This configuration is so compact that the output shaft of the transmission usually drives the generator directly. Since axial and radial misalignment and angular positioning errors can occur in the integrated drive train between the transmission and the generator, possible sources being production and assembly tolerances and also imbalances and load-dependent deformations, it is worthwhile to compensate these in order as far as possible to transmit only the torque.
It is therefore the object of the present disclosure to provide a wind power plant, in particular the drive train of a wind power plant, comprising a planetary transmission and an integrated medium-speed electric generator, which compensates forces and torques caused by axial, radial and angular misalignment in order to transmit only the torque.